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Round Europe Venice to Sydney

Sail Date:
August 2013

Destination:
Australia & New Zealand

Embarkation:
Venice

Generally a very enjoyable cruise aboard the Dawn Princess. We are Princess Cruise Platinum members and this was our second voyage on this ship. Our previous voyage was to Alaska but this was the longest single cruise that we have done.

We had absolutely perfect weather throughout the 42 day cruise and enjoyed the company of a large group of terrific fellow passengers.

The food quality and waiter table service throughout the cruise was top class. The regular Culinary demonstrations by Culinary Ambassador Master Chef Alfredo Marzi were fantastic and greatly appreciated.

Regretably our cabin service left much to be desired as did the supervision of the same staff. There was no system in the way that the staff performed their daily duties which left staterooms including ours unmade for long periods of the morning.

The On Board entertainment was second to none in both public Lounges and this considering the number of consecutive sea days was extremely More
well managed by the entertainment operational staff aboard and ashore.

The general passenger age group required quality performers and that is what they consistantly got.

Im sorry to say that there were some very serious timing mistakes made by the Navigation/Princess Patter staff which left passengers not seeing some important observation highlights such as Suez Canal high points and passing through the Singapore Straits.With the exception of a couple of advises from the Bridge that sea life was visible there was an absolute lack of information between bridge and passengers. The Captain did of course make a port by port pre sailing commentary.

To compound this issue the general sound system throughout the vessel advising detail to passengers was totally inadequate and almost impossible to comprehend when it was in use.

Finally and I have purposely left this comment until last as it almost spoilt the entire voyage for us

I would very strongly recommend to passengers who are allocated balcony or inside staterooms at the Port or Starboard sides forward of Riviera Deck 12 that you get these changed for alternative accomodation on decks 10 or 11.

It was our experience that from any time after three a.m the overhead noises from the Horizon Lounge were incredible and very seriously annoying. During these hours of the night the carpet cleaning staff banged and scraped their way around the Buffet.To compound this noise from about 05.00 hours every morning the waiters prepared the buffet outlets and moved copious quantities of trolleys and/or service units backwards and forwards on the floor over our heads.

The situation was obviously well know to the front desk as our immediate neighbours were relocated to an alternative stateroom and friends in an inside cabin adjacent to us were also relocated.We were offered a change but reluctantly we stuck with what we had as the best of a bad lot.

Stateroom R301 is directly adjacent to the access door for crew from the main body off the ship to the Senior Officers quaters ant the Bridge and regretably the slow closer on this alleyway door is not sufficiently strong to stop the door closing with a thump as it is regularly used by staff going on tyo or off watchkeeping duties throughout the night. Less